Reeven Hans CPU Cooler Review

Here we have a company new to pcG. Something that always causes a stir of excitement and apprehension amongst the team. Why you ask? Well unlike brands we’ve seen before, that either have positive or sometimes even negative expectations, we don’t really know what to expect. This is only accentuated when the company in question still happens be be fairly new to the scene and not quite well established enough to gain a reputation of any kind either. Here we have the Reeven Hans (RC1205), the first of four CPU Coolers sent to us by Reeven, but what do we know about the Reeven Hans?

The Reeven Hans is a compact tower CPU Cooler suitable for mainstream tower cases and the budget concious user. The cooler itself features an aluminium fin stack, four 6mm nickel plated copper heatpipes and a Coldwing 12 (120mm) fan, with a universal mounting bracket suitable for a plethora of CPU sockets.

We best take a closer look!

‘REEVEN is a newly established international manufacturer of PC related products. REEVEN’s product lines includes the best quality of advanced CPU coolers, Cooling Fans,PC Cases and many other items. the target of our products will be a wide range of audience under our philosopohy “Professional Quality Gears”, for products that will withstand the highest demand.’

The box of which houses the Reeven Hans makes for a rather refreshing change. As you can see from the image above, instead of the usual whites and blacks. Reeven have packaged the Hans in a small box which is maroon in colour and features a marble like design. The box front has an angled image of the CPU Cooler, the model name and number, tells us that it is Haswell ready and lists all compatible CPU sockets. Then in the top right corner we have the Reeven logo.

Over on the back we have a small specifications list, accompanied by four technical drawings of the cooler and its measurements.

The left side of the box follows the same styling as the front and back (ok, all of the sides do!). Again we see the model name and number, product SKU, Reeven web address and a handy list of cautions.

The box lid gives us a different Reeven logo, with the slogan ‘Don’t think, feel it!’, then towards the front we are told of the following features:

UNIQUE fin design for optimal performance

SLIM structure without overhanging with RAMs

Nickel-plated heatpipe for BEST DURABILITY & APPEARANCE

UNIVERSAL mounting bracket for different platform and CPU socket

The right side of the box shows us a slightly different angled image of the Reeven Hans, beneath which we have four pictograms signifying the following features:

Unique embossed fin design

Slim structure

120mm PWM Fan

Ø6mmx4 Heatpipe

Lifting the lid of the box, gives us our first real glimpse of the Reeven Hans, whilst the CPU Cooler and contents are tightly wedged within the confines of the box and fairly safe from harm.

Reeven Hans Heatsink

Reeven Coldwing 12 120mm Fan

AMD & Intel Fittings

Thermal Paste

2x Fan Clips

Installation Manual

At the time of review, the Reeven Hans has limited availability, but is available for import from Varitem for €29,95 (approximately £22.00) and comes with a typical 24 month warranty.

First Impressions

Having not heard a lot about Reeven, I have to admit my surprise when lifting the Hans from its box and handling it for the first time. The heatsink itself looks great, it feels very well made and in fact solid enough to be used sometime in the future as a murder weapon (please don’t use CPU Coolers for things they aren’t intended for). In fact the build quality and styling of the heatsink, strongly remind me of some of the Scythe CPU Coolers I’ve seen in the past.

The very top of the Reeven Hans is of a fairly plain bare aluminium with a brushed finish. What makes it stand out from the crowd are the blunt ended heatpipes, as well as the embossed logo and detailing (looks likely laser cut to me?!). On paper this doesn’t really amount to much, but when you actually see the heatsink, it really does looks good. As we can clearly see, the Hans features a fan mount on either side of the heatsink, so if you feel the inclination to do so, you could pick up a second Reeven Coldwing 12 120mm fan for a push/pull set-up.

From either side the Reeven Hans measure approximately 56mm in depth without the Coldwing 12 fan. With the fan affixed the depth is increased by 25mm to 81.5mm. The fin stack is comprised of a total of 51 aluminium fins, all of which are surprisingly solid for a CPU Cooler in this price bracket. We can see all four of the nickel plated and highly polished copper heatpipes and 5mm base. We can also see that the blunt ended heatpipes I mentioned before aren’t what I initially thought, instead being four pins of sorts to help hold the top of the fin stack together.

When viewed from the front we can see the Hans measures 155mm(H) x 133mm(W), the Reeven Hans heatsink doesn’t really look that dissimilar from almost any other CPU Cooler on the market, but clip on the 11 bladed bright yellow and black Reeven Coldwing 12 120mm fan and it looks rather nice. The Coldwing 12 fan has a speed of 300 ~ 1500RPM, with airflow measured at 16.6 ~ 82.1CFM, static pressure rated at 0.003 ~ 0.067inchH2O and a pretty reasonable noise level of 4.0 ~ 29.8dBA. More importantly of course, is the fact it is a really nice banana yellow. 😉

From beneath we get to see the heat-pipes and base plate more clearly. All of which are made of copper and nickel plated. The base itself is machine finished and highly polished, but not to a mirror finish, while measuring 38mm(W) x 43mm(D).

With a side by side comparison of the Reeven Hans and our regular test CPU Cooler the Raijintek Themis, we initially find them to be quite similar. On closer inspection however, we find that with the fan attached the Reeven Hans measures slightly larger at 155mm(H) x 133mm(W) x 81.5mm(D) Vs 158mm(H) x 122mm(W) x 78mm(D) of the Themis. The Reeven Hans is also heavier weighing in at 555g (without fan) Vs 448g for the Themis.

So far I have to admit I’m pretty impressed with the Reeven Hans. A CPU Cooler that is not only within the same price bracket as our regular Raijintek Themis CPU Cooler, but it feels of a much higher build quality, is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye and has an additional heatpipe which potentially means it could offer better cooling. We best get it installed into the Test Rig and find out!

Installation of the Reeven Hans is a little different to that of many of the recent CPU Coolers I’ve looked at recently. In fact the mounting system shares similarities to that of the Thermalright Archon IB-E X2 and Thermaltake Frio Extreme Silent 14 Dual that we looked at last year. To start off I first put the backplate assembly together. This was simply a case of threading through the upright bolts through the socket 1150 mounts on the backplate, which are then held firmly in place by a large silicon washers. The assembly is then lined up with the motherboard mounts, inserted through, the white plastic spacers are then placed over each upright, the mounting bracket threaded over the uprights and retained using four nuts and tightened with the included wrench. Once these were finger tight, I was then able to add a little thermal compound (Arctic Cooling MX-4) to the top of the i5-4690K, place the mounting bar through the heatsink, which is then lined up over the CPU and mounting backplate and affixed firmly using the backplate screws. I then used the incredibly tensile fan clips to attach the Reeven Coolwing 12 120mm fan to the front of the Hans and plugged it in to CPU fan header 1. All nice and easy…

Well yes and no… I applaud the decision by Reeven to include a small wrench to tighten the mounting plate nuts, I don’t however like their decision to use nuts in the first place (I’m not sure about you guys, but my test motherboard has these little things called heatsinks in the way of any wrench, no matter how small it is!). That is just me being a little picky I guess and to be fair the installation doesn’t really take much longer than fifteen minutes in total anyway.

Testing Methodology/Setup

For CPU Cooler testing, we here at pcGameware run Prime95 for a 15 minute period. During this period the temperature is monitored with CoreTemp and the cooling performance recorded (the max recorded is the average for all cores). Between each stress test we allow a 15 minute cool-down to allow for more accurate results. To adjust the fan speed we simply use the UEFI. A close eye is also kept on the ambient temperature, with the maximum being recorded for each run, this allows us to calculate the Delta temperature (Core – Ambient = Delta). Each run was performed with the Intel Core i5-4690K CPU at the following frequencies: 3.5GHz (Stock) and 4.0GHz (using the ASROCK OC Tweaker, shown in the picture below), all results have been recorded with CPU-Z.

* Please note: To ascertain the maximum and minimum noise levels produced by our CPU test coolers. The dB is recorded at a distance of 1 metre from the cooler, with all case fans unplugged to isolate the sound in question.

Processor speed is set using the OC Tweaker tab of the UEFI, “Disabled” for stock speeds (3.5GHz) and “Turbo 4.0GHz” for the minor overclock tests. It should be noted that changing the OC settings resets the Fan Speeds, so these are checked on the next reboot and reset to “Full Speed” (see below).

All the fans installed in the system are set to 100% speed using the displayed settings, this is simple with the ASROCK UEFI with the option of “Full Speed” being available for all system fans (bar the Power Fan header).

CPU-Z – Reeven Hans – 3.5GHz (fans @ 100%)

CPU-Z – Reeven Hans – 4.0GHz (fans @ 100%)

Hardware Performance

As stated above, to make our performance tests easier to follow and to get the most accurate recordings, all of the following tests have been carried out with case fans set at 100% and the Reeven Hans fan also set at 100%.

With the Intel Core i5-4690K at its native clock speed of 3.5GHz, the Reeven Hans puts in a far better performance than I expected. Yes it is slightly larger and slightly heavier than the Raijintek Themis, but I expected them to perform more or less the same. With a maximum average core temperature of 51.50C (25.50C Delta) the Reeven Hans may be warmer than the Themis by 0.75C, but if you take the higher ambient temperature into account, the Delta is 3.75C cooler at 25.50C. I guess that’s the benefit of having an additional heatpipe.

For the next thermal test, our i5-4690K is given a small overclock and set at 4.0GHz using the ASROCK OC Tweaker within the UEFI. This not only provides us with more CPU power, but also a higher voltage to stabilise it which then leads to more heat. The Reeven Hans again puts in a pretty good performance with a maximum average core temperature of 59.25C, which is slightly cooler than that of the Themis by 0.25C, but again the Delta is lower by 4.25C.

Acoustics

With our most obvious comparison being the Raijintek Themis, I wasn’t just expecting a similar price, size or performance, but a similar level of noise to be produced by the Reeven Hans. The Themis can belt out 47dB of sound when its 120mm fan is running at 100%, which although not deafening, isn’t especially pleasant for extended periods of time either. The Reeven Hans surprised me quite a lot by producing just 34dB of noise with its Coldwing 12 fan running at 100%, then for general web browsing you can reduce this to its lowest setting leading to a noise production of just 22dB.

Final Thoughts

Whenever we receive a product from a manufacturer that we aren’t familiar with at pcG, we always approach it will both apprehension and excitement. So will the Reeven Hans make us smile with delight or leave us feeling contrite?

The Reeven Hans arrived at pcG in a small box with a rather unusual maroon colouring and marbled background. The packaging itself displayed a couple of nice angled images of the CPU Cooler hidden inside, but unlike many of its competition, wasn’t splashed with the companies history and 101 of the coolers features. Once the box lid is lifted, we found the tight confines of the packaging to provide just enough space for its contents, which also had the knock-on effect of keeping them safely wedged and protected within. With the contents emptied, we found the the Reeven Hans to be one surprisingly good looking cooler. Which is largely thanks to its brushed aluminium capping fin, with flat retaining bolt in each corner and embossed Reeven name. With the yellow and black Coldwing 120mm fan installed, it somehow looks even better, whilst offering something ever so slightly different from that of the competition. Measuring in at 155mm(H) x 133mm(W) x 81.5mm(D) and weighing 710g (with fan), the Hans is by no means a huge cooler, in fact is is probably just the right size to fit in with most Gaming rigs without obscuring everything in site. Another kindly surprise from Reeven, was the actual build of the Hans, which is of a very high quality and reminiscent of some of the Scythe CPU Coolers I’ve seen over the years. If I’m honest none of this was I expecting from a budget CPU Cooler with an approximate cost of £22.00?!

Installing the Reeven Hans within the pcG Test Rig, was a fairly simple task in itself. With a sensibly planned mounting system that is pretty good, nearly very good in fact. Yet I feel it is slightly let down by the decision made by Reeven, to use standard nuts to hold the mounting plate in place. The included wrench is of huge benefit for this, but it makes the installation take that little bit longer, even more so when motherboard heatsinks are in the way, surely screw headed nuts would allow for a quicker install and be far more sensible?

So far the Reeven Hans has surprised with its looks, build quality, installation (apart from those damn nuts…) and low price. So surely its thermal performance is where it is going to drop the ball? With our i5-4690K at its 3.5GHz stock speed, the maximum average core temperature reached 51.50C (25.50C Delta), then with the CPU receiving a small overclock and set at 4.0GHz, the the maximum average core temperature rose to 59.25C (34.25C Delta). Making it a slightly better CPU Cooler than out regular Raijintek Themis, at a very similar price. Where it really really stands out is its acoustic performance. With the Coldwing 12 fan set at 100%, the Hans produces just 34dB of noise (easily low enough for day to day use!).

Overall the Reeven Hans has been a bit of a surprise package. It certainly ticks all the right boxes for what I’d personally be looking for in a CPU Cooler and at approximately £22.00, I doubt you’ll find a better cooler for the money. The only real problem for me is those little nuts used for the mounting assembly, which I’ll happily overlook because everything else it does so well. The Reeven Hans does have one far bigger issue though, that of its availability. To which it is very, very limited… 🙁